Debels Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Hi, I recently started to enter the HTML5 market and working on my first HTML5 game and I have a few questions regarding what publishers commonly want. Is the publisher interested in a few time play game (only a few levels to play) or a game that generates new content each time you hit play (those that don't have end and just aim to get high scores)? How much time of game play is it recommended for the game to have? Are simple menus (touch to start) better than more elaborate menus (Start, Shop, Options, etc...)? What are the game categories that get more attention?, I'm currently going for puzzle, arcade and strategy, are those a good choice? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dev Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 In terms of gameplay, you either want a simple mechanic with high-volumes of levels (e.g. there are about a million sokoban/sudoku games with a million levels ) or games where you have an infinite gameplay mechanic. (e.g. an infinite runner, word games that randomly pick from a dictionary of thousands of words, a dress-up game with enough items to allow hundreds of thousands of permutations), the best example probably being a match-3 game which keeps on generating new objects to match creating infinite gameplay opportunities. The key is then to divide those up into bite-sized gameplay packets (e.g. 90-second match-3 games) which introduce gameplay elements that get increasingly harder and somehow incentivize the user to come back and play on to the point that they either look at a lot of ads, or are so eager to get ahead that they're willing to pay for in-game perks. Candy Crush is an absolute prime example, although publishers don't require such a depth of balance, social and inapp integration or polish, they'll be very interested if you can deliver something like it. Thats kind of the most formulaic way to look at commercial casual games. Publishers want to have users return and want to retain users as long as possible. More time spent on the platform means more revenue generally. So a game that has 8 30-second puzzles and has no replay value is pretty limited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Debels Posted January 24, 2014 Author Share Posted January 24, 2014 Thanks, but regarding category, is there one thats currently "popular"?, I mean that get the most attention from publishers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dev Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 It's hard to say. On the one hand publishers accept extreme amounts of near-duplicate content. The amount of match-3 games for example that still sell (I saw an exclusive sell for a few thousand recently earlier this month) is bordering on the silly you would think if you're new to the industry. On the other hand, unique content generally always does best if it's very polished. Look at Zombies can't jump, a game like that has great value. So categories are really hard to say. For one, most publishers have multiple portals, barely anyone has only a single website. But even the ones with a single website will have different game categories (Girls and Women being very very important in the casual game market). So they're really looking for quite a broad range of games, but I'd definitely urge anyone to consider making female-oriented games. What that means is even harder to define, and I think it's important not to stereotype this and make yet another dress-up game. But that's something to think about. Again, Candy Crush is a great example, with the most popular gaming category being women between 22 and 55 who collectively spend about half a million dollars a day on this addictive game. Publishers love that and focus on this segment. That means that one thing you should be careful with is macho/violent themes. Not sure how well strategy/action will faire, it depends on the context. Plants vs zombies is a family-friendly & gender-neutral strategy game that will do very well, but your typical world-war strategy game is not family-friendly or gender-neutral enough to allow publishers to market it to everyone. So I don't really think 'what categories' is a good question to ask. But in short, puzzle, girls, action are a few good categories. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Debels Posted January 24, 2014 Author Share Posted January 24, 2014 Interesting so gender neutral content is the best way to go.How do publishers go about games that use the developers api?, I mean I want to implement global high scores, is that a deal breaker for them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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